Farmer-Led Research

In the last five years, swine hoophouses have sprung up all over the state. Those deep-bedded systems use a tremendous amount of crop residue. When the hoophouse is cleaned out, the mixture of bedding and manure contains a …

Weather affected field research in many ways in 2000′; the two nitrogen management trials. Northeast Iowa farmers John and Joan Lubke, Ridgeway, are part of PFI’s collaboration with the Iowa Farm Bureau. They expected a yield response to …

What’s in a starter fertilizer? Preferences about starters can be almost as strong as preferences about tractor color. Arlyn and Annette Valvick, Swea City, are part of PFI’s collaboration with the Iowa Farm Bureau. That program pairs producers …

In 1999, Paul and Karen Mugge, Sutherland, worked with ISU agronomist Richard Cruse to compare two strip intercropping systems, dubbed “walking” and “jumping” strips. The goal was to jump the corn strips around the field ahead of the …

What is the value of the Bt gene when it is used in the corn plant to resist corn borer? That is one of the questions in the minds of Dordt College Agricultural Stewardship Center staff who have …

Iowa row crop farmers discovered flame cultivation several years ago. However, it’s something new to the state’s vegetable farmers. Gary and Nancy Guthrie, Nevada, decided to see what it could do for carrots. The Guthrie operation is just …

This has been our second season using Washburn’s economic analysis tool with our data. This tool was shared in a 1998 Upper Midwest Organic Farming Conference Workshop. The workshop was presented by two farms – Spring Hill Farm …

Angela Tedesco’s Turtle Farm, near Granger, feeds CSA members in the Des Moines area. She produces abundant vegetable crops – and usually a good crop of cucumber beetles. Angela writes: “This cucumber beetle trial was an attempt to …

Solon members Jeff and Susan Zacharakis-Jutz and their children maintain sheep and dairy goat herds that they raise using a minimum of synthetic chemicals. They find internal parasites to be one of the more difficult challenges to manage …

What is the most profitable way to supplement the rations of milking cows that are being rotationally grazed? There is little consensus among those who graze. Our trial this year was devised to shed some light on this …

Readers of the PFI newsletter may remember that in 1998 the organization received a grant from the USDA SARE program to evaluate “fertility paradigms.” Paradigms are ways of looking at the world, constructions that we put on reality …

Gary and Nancy Guthrie, Nevada, raise vegetables for their own CSA (community supported agriculture), Growing Harmony Farm. As the son of a corn entomologist, Gary keeps a particular eye on challenges from the insect world. In their organic …